Millie drapes her apron and purse over her chair and slides into the seat with her back to the window. She scans the meal in front of her before taking a spoonful of tomato soup.
A little moan escapes her as she closes her eyes and savors it. “So good.” I take my own bite as she asks, “Want to play a game?”
“Always.” I nod.
“It’s called Game of Firsts. We take turns asking each other about our firsts of something, and for every answer, you get a point. If you don’t want to answer, you lose a point. Winner makes the loser do a dare.”
I smile as my mind conjures a list of dares I could request of her. “I can’t wait to win.”
Her eyes narrow on me. “Then you’ll be sorely disappointed.”
I drum my fingers on the linen tablecloth, already feeling my competitiveness moving through my veins. “You go first.”
“I’ll start off easy. First girlfriend?” She poses the question and dips the corner of her sandwich in her soup.
“Kelly Watson. Sixth grade.”
Millie squints at me. “And...”
“You want details?”
She lets out an exasperated sigh. “Of course I want details.”
“She was very nice, did well in math, which was important to me at the time, and she ended up breaking up with me because she had a crush on Chad Michael Murray and needed the free time to work on meeting him.”
Millie winces in sympathy. “That’s tough,” she says, biting her lips to hold in her laugh. “I have to tell you, though. I wasn’tgreatat math and definitely had a crush on Chad Michael Murray. So I don’t know if it’ll work between us,” she teases with a raised brow.
The fact that she’s even joking about anusmakes me grin from ear to ear. “Well, math abilities are no longer on my list of relationship criteria, so you’re off the hook with that one. But theChad Michael Murray thing may be a deal-breaker for me. I’ll have to think about it.”
She nods understandingly.
“First job,” I prompt.
“Does working at the farm count? I helped with every chore my parents would let me. Then I worked as a lifeguard at the city pool after senior year. That one summer was enough for my lifeguarding career. I never wanted to be in charge of babysitting teenage boys in a pool ever again.”
“Hmm. Millie in a lifeguard suit, rescuing teenage boys who are pretending to drown,” I grumble. “Did you have to give them mouth-to-mouth?”
“No. Thank goodness for that.” Her attention dips to my mouth before she asks her next question. “First kiss?” She sets her soup spoon down beside her bowl like she needs full concentration for this one. “Was it with a Princess Leia poster?”
“Ha ha,” I deadpan, rolling my eyes. “Picture those English sheepdogs, with long hair all over, hanging in their eyes. They have these big tongues sort of lolling about all the time. Imagine one of those licking all over your face and inside your mouth. And you’re trying to be a good person and not say anything, but it’s a lot of slobber, so you try to last as long as you can.”
Millie smiles, shaking her head.
“Kayla Jones told me that was how I kissed her the first time.”
Millie throws her head back with unbridled laughter, and I can’t help but join her, even though it’s at my own expense. When she looks back at me, she wipes a tear from her eye. “Oh, no. I’m hoping you’ve gotten better since then.”
“Undeniably.” I nod. “Tell me about your first kiss.”
“Middle school dance with Shane, my first boyfriend. My friends had warned me that he was going to kiss me at this dance, so I’d prepared myself as much as I could. I only had alittle fruit punch and no snacks. I even wiped my lip gloss off so the kiss wouldn’t be slimy. Then ‘Angel’ by Shaggy came on, and Shane asked me to dance. And he kissed me. It was just a peck, but then I had the terrorizing thought that if I opened my mouth, our braces might get stuck together.”
She looks at me with big eyes, and I’m already laughing. “How did no one mention that?” she continues. “I was so terrified someone was going to call my parents and we’d have to sit in the car with our faces stuck together while we drove to the orthodontist to get pulled apart. So I shut my lips tight and put my head on his shoulder for the rest of the song.” She takes a sip of tea and shrugs. “He kissed another girl on a bus ride two weeks later and dumped me.”
“Asshole.”
“Totally.” She puts a hand under her chin, thinking of a new question. “First foreign country you visited?”
“I was going to Italy to see my grandparents since before I can remember. We went every summer for at least a month when I was a kid.”
